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Netscape

Submission + - How can browsers make a buck? (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
Christopher Blanc
Christopher Blanc writes: "That search box in the top right hand corner of the browser generates a big chunk of revenue — almost all of it from Google, which is the default search engine.

So Firefox is dangerously dependent on Google for its income. But now, in the "awesome bar", it's got its own search engine which could, in theory, provide a very valuable stream of data about the browsing habits of hundreds of millions of internet users. Tristan Nitot claims that Firefox is approaching a 30% market share.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/05/firefox_can_browsers_make_buck.html"
Google

Submission + - Google launches security group for open source (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "Google is spearheading a volunteer workforce it hopes will become the centralized authority for responding to security issues in open source software.

oCERT, short for the open source computer emergency response team, will aim to remediate security vulnerabilities and exploits in a wide range of open source programs by coordinating communication among publishers. According to Google's security blog, the group "will strive to contact software authors with all security reports and aid in debugging and patching, especially in cases where the author, or the reporter, doesn't have a background in security."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/06/google_launches_ocert/"
The Internet

Submission + - Tethered gadgets threaten Internet future (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "The rise of gadgets such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Xbox threatens to unravel the decades of innovation which helped to build the Internet, a leading Oxford academic has warned in a new book.

Professor Jonathan Zittrain says the latest must-have devices are sealed, "sterile" boxes that stifle creativity and turn consumers into passive users of technology.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080508/tc_nm/britain_internet_life_dc"
Security

Submission + - Firefox Plugin Shipped With Malicious Code (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "Because of a virus infection, the Vietnamese language pack for Firefox 2 was polluted with adware, Mozilla security chief Window Snyder said in a blog posting. "Everyone who downloaded the most recent Vietnamese language pack since February 18, 2008 got an infected copy," she wrote.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/145617"
Privacy

Submission + - Licensing software to be in RAM: new corp tactic (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "Blizzard is fighting against a company that sells a bot program for use with World of WarCraft, but is doing so in a novel, and scary way: using your RAM to play games is copyright infringement, until Blizzard tells you it isn't.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080507-blizzard-attempt-to-kill-wow-bot-bad-news-for-copyright-law.html"
User Journal

Journal Journal: Actually, Vista works 1

Journal by athloi

I'm a Windows XP and FreeBSD user. The only thing I won't use is a Mac, because the Macintosh user community, as a group, behaves like a pretentious snot and I don't want to be associated with it. I think I like Windows XP okay for desktop software, but anything server-ish and most development tasks I prefer to do on the BSD box. Desktop and server really are two completely different worlds.
Microsoft

Submission + - DRM cop for Zune video (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "Apple refused to cooperate with NBC on building filters into its iPod player to remove pirated movies and videos.

Microsoft, by contrast, will accept NBC's pricing scheme and will work with it to try to develop a copyright "cop" to be installed on its devices.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/microsoft-may-build-a-copyright-cop-into-every-zune/"
Privacy

Submission + - End anonymity in comments, says paper (news.com)

Submitted by
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "Brady, executive editor of The Washington Post's online division, said during a panel discussion at the Digital Hollywood conference here that he would like to see a technology that could identify people who violate site standards — and if need be — automatically kick them off for good.

"I think part of the problem is that people aren't held accountable on the Web," Brady said. "People say things online they would never say when disagreeing with someone at the dinner table. I think heated debate is fine, but when there are (flame wars), many people won't take part for fear they will be attacked and bashed over the head with the (Internet-equivalent) of a steel pipe."

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9936794-7.html

("Politics won't allow for the truth." — P.J. O'Rourke)"
Programming

Submission + - Programming Open Source is vital learning (artima.com)

Submitted by
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "I can remember thinking at the time that I would be able to sell these, along with the SDK, to clients who wanted sophisticated and easy-to-use windowing components all over the globe, and then be able to retire and ride my bike forever more. It didn't quite work out like that. I was smart enough (but only after I'd spent all the effort) to realise the daunting challenge it would be to control installation and version, handle environmental issues and bug reports, and manage the trade-offs between protecting intellectual property and hindering users. And then there's the hassles of the financial side and the daunting nature of the warranties. Long story short is that the controls were never commercialised. They see action in various bespoke projects for clients from time to time, as well as in several of my internal / free tools. But all that effort has never seen a direct payoff. The payoff in learning was immense, however, and I'm very glad for it.

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=229570"
Google

Submission + - Google joins Wimax consortium (alleyinsider.com)

Submitted by
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "Sprint will have 51% equity ownership of the new company, Clearwire's existing shareholders will own 27%, and a host of investors from the cable and technology industries will own about 22% of the company. These include:

        * Comcast (CMCSA), which will invest $1.05 billion
        * Intel Capital (INTC), which will invest $1 billion
        * Time Warner Cable (TWC), which will invest $550 million
        * Google (GOOG), which will invest $500 million
        * Bright House Networks, which will invest $100 million

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/sprint_clearwire_announce_wimax_deal_terms"

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